


The Care of Magical Creatures

by artisan447, Siria



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artisan447/pseuds/artisan447, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Danny's morning doesn't go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Care of Magical Creatures

**Author's Note:**

> Comment fic, inspired by [this BTS photo of Alex O'Loughlin filming episode 3.18](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v19/Siria/tumblr_mjo70vLdH11s89f90o1_1280.jpg) Situational spoilers for the episode.

You save someone's life, they're liable to express their gratitude for it. Danny's pretty used to this, and don't get him wrong, he's not being ungrateful. He appreciates the thank you cards, the hugs, the occasional gift card or beer bought for him. Turns out, though, that if you're part of a task force that helps save a whole roller derby team from certain death, the rewards are a little different than usual. 

Case in point, the sight which awaits Danny when he shuffles down the stairs in search of his morning coffee. Stuck to the fridge is the front page of _The Roller Derby Times_ , a no-doubt august publication that Danny has never heard of until this particular moment. His attention is riveted by it, though, because most of said front page is taken up by a brightly coloured photograph—Steve, surrounded by a group of smiling women on roller skates. Steve, who was surrounded by said women while perched on the back of a sparkly purple stuffed unicorn mascot. 

The unicorn, Danny's brain helpfully points out, has silver hooves, and some sort of glittery facial markings that make it look like Walt Disney mated with a member of KISS. Danny chokes.

Next to the newspaper clipping is a handmade card which shows all the hallmarks of being the product of one Grace Williams. It's got extra glitter, an abundance of pastels, and it says THANK YOU FOR THE UNICORN STEP STEVE! in exuberant capitals. 

Not only is the card carefully secured to the fridge door with four magnets which are evenly and precisely spaced at its corners, but Steve's had the thing laminated. Danny chokes again—in fact, chokes for a third time when Steve materialises behind him (goddamn ninja Navy SEAL skills) and says, "You getting a sore throat, Danno?"

Danny just spins around and eyes Steve, head-to-toe, before biting on his bottom lip and narrowing his eyes speculatively. He is, he has to admit, more than a little pleased to see how that makes Steve start to fidget. Sure, Steve can probably kill a guy with his pinkie finger while his eyes are closed, but Danny's been known to make the man apologise for inappropriate grenade use. He's not without skills in this relationship, is what he's saying. 

"No," Danny says, while Steve stands there in his board shorts and drips salt water all over their kitchen floor. "No, I'm just seeing similarities I had not considered before. Which means now I'm wondering if I might not wake up one morning to find you"—he pokes a finger in Steve's chest—"covered in purple sparkles with silver on your…" He gestures down at Steve's feet in their flip-flops.

Steve interrupts, grinning, while Danny's still searching for the right word. "What, Danno? My hooves?"

"Hey," Danny says, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "You said it, not me!" 

"Well, you know what they say about guys with big feet," Steve says. The grin has evolved into a definite smirk. "Big—"

"No!" Danny says, "Uh huh, no, you're not even going to go there, okay? Because pretending that my partner has some facsimile of maturity going on, that's a necessity for my continuing functioning, here." 

"Hey now," Steve says, reaching around him to snag his water bottle from the kitchen counter. This brought him close enough for Danny to be able to smell him—sweat from surfing, sunblock and salt water, the kind of scent that Danny had been finding way too attractive for probably just a little longer than even now he cared to admit. "Don't get all stereotypical on me, Danno. You saying men can't wear makeup?"

Danny squints at him. "I'm not getting all—wait, are you telling me that you've worn makeup?"

For a second, Steve's face goes soft and fond, his grin taking on a goofy edge as though he's—shit, is he _remembering_ something? 

Danny's mouth falls open as his brain helpfully provides (graphically, in technicolour) an image of Steve McGarrett and his cargo pants and his stubble and his ridiculously long eyelashes, wearing makeup. But Steve, the bastard, just shakes off whatever memory is frolicking around inside his head, striking a nonchalant pose and saying, "What? You saying you haven't?", as though butter wouldn't melt in his sneaky deflecting mouth. 

"Ah ah ah. I have a daughter. Sunday mornings, cartoons and makeup are somehow irrevocably linked, and I'm secure enough in my masculinity to admit I've even been a pedicure model for her." He wags a finger in Steve's face. "You, on the other hand, have no such excuse. And that face—that one right there—that is a covering-up-something-of-monumental-proportions face. So give."

"It wasn't monumental, Danno. It was just a Review." Steve shrugs, as though this is all no big deal. As though he's not relating an actual honest-to-God experience that's doing strange things to the inside of Danny's head. To say nothing of other parts of his anatomy, and all before eight on a weekend morning. "It gets boring out in the desert."

Danny blinks rapidly as he tries to process all this. "Wait, wait, so you're telling me that _multiple_ Navy SEALs, ye of the rampant testosterone and the shooting people and the hooh yah, that you guys voluntarily wore makeup and, and—" He waves a hand, and he's probably coming up on the all-time record for how frequently he's been left bereft of speech in a twenty-four hour period. His brain keeps getting stuck on the image of Steve's eyes rimmed with dark kohl, his mouth soft and sticky with gloss. Jesus. 

"Drag, Danny," Steve says, like he's being helpful. He grins again before chugging from his water bottle. 

"Thank you," Danny says, "because that's clearly a concept I'd never encountered in all the thirty-three years I spent living in New Jersey or watching, you know, any sort of multimedia entertainment, oh the things I learned since moving to Hawaii. I know what drag is, Steven, what I'm talking about here is the _context_."

"It was a one-off thing, Danny, jeez. For a good cause!" Steve says, setting the bottle back on the counter. Later, Danny's pretty sure that the bastard must have timed it precisely—waited for the moment that Danny's brain was just starting to get off the hamster wheel of giddy arousal because hey, people do a lot of silly stuff for charity all the time, right? Human dignity always fetches a pretty good price, after all, and it was done for laughs and not for— 

"I'm pretty sure there are pictures," Steve says. 

Danny chokes again. 

"Pictures? Did you say _pictures_."

"Yeah, well, it was an all Services thing, and we were pretty unrecognisable between the makeup and the feathers and the wigs, so…" Steve trails off, thoughtful, before shrugging again. "Command figured minimal risk so they allowed publication, long as no names were attached. I know _All Hands_ covered it, I'm pretty sure the Jarheads' mag did too."

Danny laughs. He can't help it, because seriously? "The Navy has a magazine called _All Hands_? Are you kidding me?"

Steve barks out a laugh and throws his hands wide. "Yeah. Cool, huh?"

"Oh, babe." Danny shuffles in close and traps his own personal, entirely ridiculous unicorn against the bench with both hands. "That, and the phrase 'it gets boring in the desert' explains so much about your life choices."

"Luckily I'm pretty good at entertaining myself," Steve says. "And occasionally some other people."

"Oh," Danny says, drawing out the word in mock surprise. "Some other people, huh? And these other people would include…"

"I'm pretty sure Mary left some makeup behind in the medicine cabinet last time she was home." Steve stoops to graze his stubble against Danny's, nosing at Danny's jawline in a way he knows makes Danny crazy. "And there's some glitter in that box of Gracie's school supplies."

Danny plasters himself even closer and turns his head to bite at the angle of Steve's jaw. Let's face it, if they're going to play dirty here, then he's got more than a few tricks up his own sleeve—which hey, at least he's wearing, unlike someone he could name who seems to think clothing is about as compulsory as stopping at yellow traffic lights, though it's not like Danny's had cause to complain about the clothing-optional policy for several months now. 

But then Danny's stupid, over-achieving brain kicks in, conflates Mary's makeup, Grace's glitter and Steve's silver-hoofed feet and stutters to a complete halt. "So. Ah." He leans back, runs both hands up the warm expanse of Steve's chest. "Did you, ah… You know, with the eyes…"

"It's called mascara, Danny. And yeah, I did. With the eyes." Steve's voice is a low burr and his mouth curves in a sinful grin as he leans back, too, pushing his hips forward. And while Danny's brain may be misfiring, it looks like everything else is working just fine, judging by his response when Steve adds, "I remember the lip gloss tasted like cherry."

"We could," Danny stutters. "We should, uh." He can't seem to tear his gaze away from Steve's mouth: from imagining it smeared cherry red and sticky from lipgloss and Danny's kisses. "Can I watch while you put it on? Please."

Standing in their kitchen in his t-shirt and pyjama pants, before he'd so much as had his morning coffee, wasn't exactly how Danny had expected to discover a brand new kink. But what the hell, it wasn't as if anything in his life could be classed as normal since he'd moved here—and more and more, maybe, he's starting to think that normal is over-rated. 

Especially seeing that his boyfriend has stealth training that lets him undo the drawstring on Danny's PJs without Danny so much as noticing. 

"Yeah, you can watch," Steve says, looking down, his ridiculous eyelashes fanning over his cheeks as he cups Danny's hips in his hands. "Or—" The bastard looks up, right into Danny's eyes, and tugs his full bottom lip in between his teeth knowing, knowing full _well_ , exactly what that does to Danny. "You could do it. You could put it on me."

Danny is in no way responsible for the flush that heats his skin at that, at the thought of Steve kneeling patiently in front of him while Danny carefully outlines his eyes in dark pencil, trusting Danny to get it just right. Nor is he responsible for the sound that crawls its way up out of his chest, guttural and deep, because he's only human, after all, and so has no defense against mythical creatures. 

"You," he says, grabbing hold of a laughing Steve and manhandling him toward the door. "You are about to find out exactly what I can do, babe."

Danny is very good at keeping his promises.


End file.
